'The overriding emotion should be encouragement'

I doubt many Ipswich Town fans will look back on Saturday’s 2-0 loss to Liverpool with any concern. If anything, the overriding emotion should be encouragement.

Our previous Premier League campaign included an 0-11 aggregate loss over the two games to the Reds. Any pre-match optimism was therefore offset with a lingering worry that history might repeat itself, at least to some extent. But, this present-day Ipswich, with eight players getting minutes who starred in our 22-23 League One promotion, always give things a good go. The aggressive start by Kieran McKenna’s side nearly led to goals for Jacob Greaves and Omari Hutchinson.

But Liverpool ultimately deserved their win. The goals by Diogo Jota and Mohamed Salah demonstrate a standard of attacking play which won’t be common for us to face most weeks this season. But, it’s worth noting that Arne Slot was forced into a half-time substitution and a tactical tweak to help make it happen.

There are of course lessons to be learned by McKenna and his team.

The bar for refs to hand out yellow cards is much lower than the EFL (annoyingly for the Portman Road faithful!). It’s clear that winning fouls, but more importantly avoiding cards, is an art form in the Premier League.

The luxury of decision-making time, especially during counter attacks, is not something we’ll be afforded much of. Too often an extra touch was taken by a Town player when presented with a sight of goal. Realistically the trigger will need to be pulled much earlier if we’re going to get enough goals to win games a level up.

But these are the kind of lessons to learn when there are 37 games still to go. The Blue Army will be hoping we don’t get a schooling though during a daunting trip to the Etihad.

Find more from Richard Woodward at the Blue Monday Podcast